Lincoln Riley describes the dangers of facing Colorado after their big loss

Colorado‘s most recent 42-6 blowout loss may give outsiders more confidence in the USC Trojans as they visit the Buffaloes this weekend in Boulder. But USC head coach Lincoln Riley isn’t taking Colorado, led by head coach Deion Sanders, lightly.

The Trojans just found themselves in a high-scoring, back-and-forth battle on the road this past Saturday versus Arizona State before pulling away late in the game to secure the win. And Riley believes that the Trojans could possibly be in similar circumstances this weekend at Folsom Field.

“Very similar to what we just walked into right? Again, everybody wants to write the book week after week and a lot of things change week to week,” Riley said. “Whether they won by a lot, lost by a lot, or anything in between, we’re gonna see a good football team at their home and those are always a challenge.”

Colorado did have quite the embarrassing showing versus Oregon following a well-documented 3-0 start to the season, and many including the AP Top 25 Poll consider USC an even better team than the Ducks at the moment. But with how loaded the Pac-12 Conference is this season, Riley knows that winning games on the road is never guaranteed and always comes at a premium.

“I say it all the time, I told the guys this morning, road conference games are gold,” Riley said. “That’s where it’s at man. You want to be a champion? That’s where it’s at. And so this is another one and it’s a big challenge.”

USC lost just one road game in the regular season last year, falling to Utah by one point following a successful two-point conversion attempt with under a minute left in the game. And Riley believes the team’s past challenges and adversity faced, particularly last Saturday, will be advantageous to his team.

“And I think it’s probably good for us that we faced a little bit of the challenge, to Max’s point earlier, that we faced a little bit of the challenge that we did and I feel like we will be even more prepared going into this one,” Riley said.

Saturday’s matchup will feature two of the nation’s top quarterbacks, as former Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and Shedeur Sanders will look to outscore each other and likely continue to raise their draft stock in the process.

USC and Colorado kick off this Saturday at noon ET in a Pac-12 matchup airing on FOX.